Is X4 a rts game?

[Furious Ming]

After looking at the store page i watched some reviews on youtube and could not really identify the genre of this game. In some footage it seems like a first person spaceship game flying around making trade, mining or bounty hunting and in other videos you are building space stations and have a armada of space ships fighting big conflicts.
Are you a person in this game or just jumping between ships and stations via hotkey?
What exactly is this game?

[Targaryen22]

You are a singular entity with the ability to command and fly any ship you've purchased for yourself or allow the AI to do it for you while also having the option of building your own space stations for various purposes. So. Rts first person space sandbox rpg empire builder I guess be a good descriptor lol

[NoDMoD]

Originally posted by Furious Ming:

After looking at the store page i watched some reviews on youtube and could not really identify the genre of this game. In some footage it seems like a first person spaceship game flying around making trade, mining or bounty hunting and in other videos you are building space stations and have a armada of space ships fighting big conflicts.
Are you a person in this game or just jumping between ships and stations via hotkey?
What exactly is this game?

It has RTS mechanics, but they do not work as you expect them to.

[Farrel]

You can play it as an RTS... And after it gets to a certain point, yes, you will have whole fleets to organise and run, effectively turning it into an RTS.

However, if you own a ship, you can fly it personally... And your piloting skills will be generally better than any AI pilot... So you could say it's a space flight sim with RTS fleet management.

Honestly, I still consider it an economy simulation sandbox with combat.

You are a person in the game, you can walk around stations and ships if you want... Yes, you build stations, trade materials, mine minerals... Or hire and assign NPCs to do most of that for you whilst you take care of what you consider to be the important work. (In my case, stealing other people's expensive ships)

X4 is an odd game where you can play in a few different ways, after a point, you don't even have to set foot on a ship for most of the things you want to do... It's a long, sometimes very slow sandbox simulation at heart, you largely set your own goals and do as much or as little as you want.

[Dri]

To all of your questions, short answer : yes.

Slightly longer and adding to other peoples comments:
- You are an actual person that can walk out of your pilot seat and got off the ship either for space walk or when you dock on a space station.
- You can hire another pilot to fly your ship and command them to do some stuff (mining, trading, patrol etc)
- This game is basically an empire building game, you start as a lone pilot and work your way up to become a fleet commander.
- For jumping to ships lets just say its one of the quest reward.